On a whim, we did a free stopover via Royal Air Maroc to Casablanca for 3 days. While I wouldn’t recommend Royal Air Maroc for literally any other reason, the free stopover was great. A short list of issues with Royal Air Maroc: seats had wet gum on them, food was inedible, the plane we took from Casablanca to Lisbon was so old that it had propellers…
We loved Casablanca. It’s the only place we stayed in a 5 star hotel and the kids still talk about it. (We’re talking $125/room for a one bedroom suite that slept 4 people) The hotel also has the most incredible breakfast buffet of anywhere we stayed, which is really saying something. It was an enormous room of all foods: veggies, cheeses, meats, hot food, pastries, make your own crepes, etc. we also had a rooftop patio where we had dance parties every night. The food everywhere in Morocco was just amazing. There are French pastries, every kind of Middle Eastern food, and great street food. The souk is a winding path of clothes stores and food markets. Highlights were a guy who sold fresh cream tarts from a cart for 50 cents and a custom yogurt cart, where you could choose your grain (8 kinds of cooked grains!) and your fruit. That was one dollar. We also got some Morocco futbol jerseys. We felt safe and people were unfailingly kind and helpful. There was little English spoken, with French and Arabic as the primary languages, but we got by in Spanish and hand gestures. This is another place we would go back in a heartbeat.
Highlights:
- the King Hussein II mosque’s outer and inner beauty
- Walking along the waterfront
- Breakfast buffet
- The souk
Food: 10
Budget: 10
Culture: 9
Vibe: 9